Sunday, August 12, 2007

"Court Rules: Novell owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights! Novell has right to waive! Hot off the presses: Judge Dale Kimball has issued a 102-page ruling [PDF] on the numerous summary judgment motions in SCO v. Novell. Here it is as text. Here is what matters most:

[T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights.

That's Aaaaall, Folks! The court also ruled that "SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent". That's the ball game. There are a couple of loose ends, but the big picture is, SCO lost. Oh, and it owes Novell a lot of money from the Microsoft and Sun licenses.

If anyone can please put this into text for us, that'd be simply great. [We have it done.] There is a filing in IBM also, and here's the docket entry:

Judge Kimball asks the parties, in view of the ruling in Novell, which "significantly impacts the claims and counterclaims asserted" in IBM, to prepare by August 31 "a statement of its view of the status of this case and, more specifically, the effect of the SCO v. Novell decision on each of the pending motions."

All right, all you Doubting Thomases. I double dog dare you to complain about the US court system now. I told you if you would just be patient, I had confidence in the system's ability to sort this out in the end.

But we must say thank you to Novell and especially to its legal team, Morrison & Foerster, for the incredible work they have done. I know it's not technically over and there will be more to slog through, but they won what matters most, and it's been a plum pleasin' pleasure watching you work. The entire FOSS community thanks you for your skill and all the hard work and thanks go to Novell for being willing to see this through."

"My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models."

He's questioning the use and abuse and belief in models not global warming per se.

"In the modern world, science and society often interact in a perverse way. We live in a technological society, and technology causes political problems. The politicians and the public expect science to provide answers to the problems. Scientific experts are paid and encouraged to provide answers. The public does not have much use for a scientist who says, “Sorry, but we don’t know”. The public prefers to listen to scientists who give confident answers to questions and make confident predictions of what will happen as a result of human activities. So it happens that the experts who talk publicly about politically contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think. They make confident predictions about the future, and end up believing their own predictions. Their predictions become dogmas which they do not question. The public is led to believe that the fashionable scientific dogmas are true, and it may sometimes happen that they are wrong. That is why heretics who question the dogmas are needed..."

"The Internet is a powerful force for good: within 20 years it has expanded from almost nothing to a key component of critical national infrastructure and a driver of innovation and economic growth. It facilitates the spread of information, news and culture. It underpins communications and social networks across the world. A return to a world without the Internet is now hardly conceivable.

But the Internet is now increasingly the playground of criminals. Where a decade ago the public perception of the e-criminal was of a lonely hacker searching for attention, today's "bad guys" belong to organised crime groups, are highly skilful, specialised, and focused on profit. They want to stay invisible, and so far they have largely succeeded. While the incidence and cost of e-crime are known to be huge, no accurate data exist.

Underpinning the success of the Internet is the confidence of hundreds of millions of individual users across the globe. But there is a growing perception, fuelled by media reports, that the Internet is insecure and unsafe. When this is set against the rate of change and innovation, and the difficulty of keeping pace with the latest technology, the risk to public confidence is clear.

The Government have insisted in evidence to this inquiry that the responsibility for personal Internet security ultimately rests with the individual. This is no longer realistic, and compounds the perception that the Internet is a lawless "wild west". It is clear to us that many organisations with a stake in the Internet could do more to promote personal Internet security: the manufacturers of hardware and software; retailers; Internet Service Providers; businesses, such as banks, that operate online; the police and the criminal justice system.

We believe as a general principle that well-targeted incentives are more likely to yield results in such a dynamic industry than formal regulation. However, if incentives are to be effective, they may in some cases need to be backed up by the possibility of direct regulation. Also, there are some areas, such as policing, where direct Government action is needed. So Government leadership across the board is required. Our recommendations urge the Government, through a flexible mix of incentives, regulation, and direct investment, to galvanise the key stakeholders.

The threat to the Internet is clear, but it is still manageable. Now is the time to act, both domestically, and internationally, through the European Union and through international organisations and partnerships."